With global orders for the new iX3 near 100,000, BMW dealers in China are reportedly overwhelmed by demand, with tens of thousands of pre-orders coming in in less than a week after it went on sale.
The new BMW iX3 is off to a strong start, even in China
After launching the new iX3, the first from its Neue Klasse (“New Class”) lineup last September, BMW’s former CEO Oliver Zipse revealed the electric SUV secured 50,000 orders in its first six months on the market.
BMW said on Thursday that orders were now nearing 100,000. To meet the stronger-than-expected demand, the company added a second shift at its plant in Debrecen, Hungary, earlier this year.
While the promising start has caught even BMW off guard, the new iX3 is reportedly now drawing big interest in China, where the luxury automaker, like most foreign OEMs, is quickly losing market share to domestic EV makers like BYD and Xiaomi.
BMW launched the new iX3 in China at the Chengdu Auto Show on August 21 in three variations, with prices ranging from 269,900 yuan to 339,900 yuan ($40,200 to $50,500).
Several BMW dealers told 36Kr that “Once the pre-sale price was announced, the sales team has barely stopped working, working until 10 pm every day,” adding that “there are just too many interested users.”
Shao Bin, Senior Vice President of Marketing at BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd at the 2026 Chengdu Auto Show (Source: BMW)
In just under a week, each BMW store in the core area has received nearly 80 “small orders,” the dealers claimed. Since it went on sale, the new BMW iX3 has reportedly secured “tens of thousands” of small blind pre-orders.
The “overwhelming demand” comes despite having essentially zero actual vehicles to show. “We’re not selling cars, we’re just selling pictures, Xiao Zhou, a BMW salesperson, told 36Kr.
In the 10 years that Zhou has worked for BMW, this is the first time that he has had no models to display after opening pre-sales.
BMW expects show cars will begin arriving at dealerships at the end of October, followed by the first customer deliveries in November.
BMW iX3 50L (Source: BMW)
Full-scale deliveries are not expected to begin until 2027. According to BMW’s app, those who place an order can have it confirmed by January 31, 2027.
To keep potential buyers interested, BMW introduced a new “waiting points” system, which many local EV manufacturers use. From the day they place an order, iX3 buyers will receive 100 BMW membership points a day until the vehicle is delivered.
With a total of about 16,000 points possible from now until January 2027, the value is worth around 4,000 yuan, 36Kr said, or roughly $600.
The BMW i3 Long Wheelbase (left) and iX3 Long Wheelbase (right) Source: BMW
A source close to BMW’s R&D team told 36Kr that some of the new technology included in the iX3 is still in the final stages of testing. BMW “would rather delay delivery than hand over a half-finished product to users,” the source said.
Like in Europe and other overseas markets, BMW’s new iX3 is off to a promising start in China as well.
As the first EV based on BMW’s Neue Klasse platform with its sixth-generation eDrive (Gen6) architecture, the new iX3 is a step change from its first-generation electric vehicles.
BMW iX3 50L prototype drives 500 miles in real-world driving conditions (Source: BMW)
The new BMW iX3 has an official CLTC range of up to 919 km (517 mi). In June, BMW tested an iX3 50L xDrive Long Wheelbase (LWB) prototype, which covered over 800 km (500 miles) around the Qinghai Lake grand loop.
BMW put it through the paces, repeatedly climbing hills with an elevation gain of over 6,500 feet (nearly 2,000 meters) and driving through “heavy snowfall, intense rain, and strong high-altitude sunshine.”
The prototype achieved an energy consumption of 20.3 kWh/100 miles (12.6 kWh/100 km), or 4.9 miles per kWh, and still had 2% battery capacity at the end of the journey.
BMW iX3 interior (China-spec) Source: BMW
BMW said that under the same real-world driving conditions, the iX3 LWB could achieve a driving range of about 835-840 km (518-522 miles).
The China-specific iX3 also features nearly 40 “high-value features” as standard on all trims, including BMW’s Panoramic iDrive, a new end-to-end autonomous driving system developed with Momenta, and a new AI-powered Intelligent Assistant with Alibaba Large Language Models (LLMs).
Electrek’s Take
Although the orders in China are blind pre-orders and likely a bit inflated, the new iX3 is still doing one thing — getting buyers interested in the brand again.
BMW still has a long way to go to revamp the brand in China, the world’s largest EV market. In the first half of 2026, BMW Group’s sales in China plummeted by 20% compared to the same period last year.
Its attention to detail has helped BMW get to where it is today, but to keep up with Chinese brands like BYD and Xiaomi, it will need to shorten its development cycle drastically. Generating hype is one thing, but converting it into actual sales is another.
In the US, the 2027 BMW iX3 50 xDrive is available to order, starting at $61,500. It has an EPA-estimated driving range of up to 434 miles.
The BMW iX3 40 is on sale in Germany, starting at €63,400 ($73,000), with a WLTP driving range of 628 km (390 miles), while the iX3 50 xDrive is priced from €73,925 ($85,200), with a driving range of up to 805 km (500 miles).
The LWB version’s wheelbase is 108 mm longer than that of the standard iX3, but it’s specifically designed for China.
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